We are awash with oil

**Posted by Phineas

How much do we have? Try more than the rest of the world, combined:

The Green River Formation, a largely vacant area of mostly federal land that covers the territory where Colorado, Utah and Wyoming come together, contains about as much recoverable oil as all the rest the world’s proven reserves combined, an auditor from the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Thursday.

(…)

β€œThe Green River Formation–an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming–contains the world’s largest deposits of oil shale,”Anu K. Mittal, the GAO’s director of natural resources and environment said in written testimony submitted to the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.

β€œUSGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions,” Mittal testified.

β€œThe Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can be recovered,” Mittal told the subcommittee. β€œAt the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.”

Sadly, most of this sits on federal lands, and we know what that means: no drilling, no fracking, no how. This administration is enslaved to a chimerical “Green agenda” that treats anything to do with fossil fuels the way a vampire would garlic, and instead wants to flush billions down the drain in pursuit of alternative energy sources that are nowhere economically viable. In fact, boondoggles like wind farms and solar can only exist via taxpayer subsidies, increasing costs for everyone and destroying genuinely productive jobs in the process.

Meanwhile, we sit figuratively chained, forbidden to take those rational steps to develop and exploit our vast resources (1) safely and with due regard for environmental stewardship, all while restoring prosperity to our economy and pushing us toward energy self-sufficiency.

The Obama administration’s energy policies aren’t just stupid and they aren’t just destructive — they’re immoral.

RELATED: More from Hot Air. Power Line demolishes the president’s “two-percent lie.”

Footnote:
(1) And this doesn’t even include Canadian resources, or that available in the Bakken formation.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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